Press Photographers at Play

Leslie Jones was a Boston photojournalist, working for the Boston Herald for 39 years in the early to mid-twentieth century. He (and his friends) also really, wonderfully, liked taking silly pictures. 

Photos from 1920s-1950s, with more specific dates when noted. 

More of Jones' (serious) work here. 

Boston Public Library

Jones and a young fellow photographer in just a normal handshake, 1936. Source

Boston Public Library

Jones getting action with a mannequin, 1935. Source

Boston Public Library

Jones and pal posing for the camera. Source

Marked Up

Before Photoshop, photographs were hardly left untouched. Professional portraits were retouched and airbrushed from the start. Press prints in particular were worked over to meet the needs of page layout and halftone printing. The main difference is simply in the marks left behind. Crop marks and the painting out of backgrounds for a cut-out effect are common leftovers of the manipulator's hand, leaving behind a wealth of inadvertent surrealism. 

Nina Leen, LIFE © Time Inc.

A man in a business suit, 1946. Source

Nina Leen, LIFE © Time Inc.

Polar bears at the Bronx Zoo, 1956. Source

Nationaal Archief

George Mallory (with halo) and other members of the 1924 Everest expedition. Source

Action on the Western Front

The misery of World War One is a recurring theme in this blog, with the implicit question "how could they make anyone go through this hell?". Today we have a new installment, from a new source. The majority of World War One photographs here have been official British photographs (from the National Library of Scotland), made within specific guidelines to be published in the press. While there are nonetheless some striking action shots, and the overall misery can't be denied, their depictions of the war are heavily influenced by the vision the government wanted to project--a), that these men are heroes, and b) overall it's not that bad. Most action scenes are posed and/or performed for the camera in back-line trenches.  Well-fed and smiling faces are emphasized, as are peaceful scenes. Most photographs of wounded soldiers emphasize the care they are given. Dead bodies are always identified as Germans; the British dead are pictured only in graves. We've looked also at some Australian WWI photographs, American ones, and even French autochromes, all fitting into this trend. 

Recently, though, I found a set of Canadian WWI photographs, from Library and Archives Canada (who are on Flickr, but not the Commons). Though the named photographers-- William Ivor Castle, Henry Edward Knobels, and William Rider-Rider-- were official photographers, there seem to be quite a few different kinds of views. Notably there are more action shots, taken under fire, more similar to later photojournalist war photography. (even if, as should be noted, shots were sometimes altered-- shrapnel bursts from one photograph's sky might have been added to that of a another). Overall there seems to be a more frank depictions of the honesty of war than in the British official photographs, which I feel is worth a long look.

Library and Archives Canada

Troops dig themselves in while shrapnel bursts overhead, Vimy Ridge, 1917. Source

Library and Archives Canada

A tank in a muddy, shelled landscape, Passchendaele, 1917. Source

Library and Archives Canada

The battlefield near Courcelette, October 1916. Source

Something Just Broke

People reacting to the news of JFK's assasination, in France as well as the United States. 1963.

(The title is from a powerful song in Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins.)

A New Yorker's expression of shock at the news. Source

New Yorkers read about the assassination in the paper. Source

New Yorkers listen to the news on the radio. Source

Subway commuters read the news. Source

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Frenchmen read the news. Source

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American students in Paris hear the news of the assassination. Source

A young American stands stricken outside the US Embassy in Paris. Source

The Heat of Battle

Intense photographs of American soldiers fighting in Guam, 1944, by LIFE photographer W. Eugene Smith.

Warning: some graphic and disturbing content. 

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GIs treat a wounded combat dog. Source

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Evacuation Hospital

Striking photographs of an evacuation hospital on the front lines, where wounded soldiers are treated right off the battlefield. Anzio, Italy, 1944, by Margaret Bourke-White.

Medics unload wounded from ambulances at the evacuation hospital, in the mud. Source

Surgeons work on shrapnel causalities. Source

A medic and nurses giving blood plasma to a critically injured patient. Source

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Medics x-raying patients for shrapnel wounds and broken bones. Source

A medic carries an x-ray through the mud. Source

Medics attend a healthy soldier donating a bottle of blood. Source

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Medics put freshly drawn blood into the ice box. Source

A [cute!] convalescent patient picks his way through the mud with a letter from home. Source

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Two nurses walk through the mud from their bathroom tent. Source

Army doctors and nurse finishing an operation to remove a piece of shrapnel from a patient's head. Source

Medics loading a wounded man into an ambulance. Source

An army surgeon wipes the lips of a wounded soldier receiving a blood transfusion. Source

Surgeons perform chest operation on a wounded soldier. Source

A strained smile from the surgeon. Source

Medics and drivers with ambulances beside a hospital train, used to bring wounded from the evacuation hospitals to larger ones away from the front line. The station has been bombed out.  Source

Wounded soldiers being cared for on the hospital train. Source

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For the medics... back to the muddy evacuation hospital. Source